Migration, Remittances, and Male and Female Employment Patterns

This paper traces the impact of international remittances on the labor supply of working-age men and women in Mexico. It accounts for the endogenity of remittance income and examines differences in the hours worked in urban and rural areas, owing to their remittance income. Remittances may reduce or...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The American economic review 2006-05, Vol.96 (2), p.222-226
Main Authors: Amuedo-Dorantes, Catalina, Pozo, Susan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Economic theory
Employment
Females
Gender differences
Hispanic people
Households
Human capital
Income effect
Informal economy
Informal sector
Labor supply
Labour market
Labour supply
Men
Migration
Migration, Human Capital, Employment, and Earnings
Per capita
Remittances
Role
Rural areas
Self employment
Studies
U.S.A
Urban areas
Variables
Wages
Wages & salaries
Women
Work hours
Working hours
Working women
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This paper traces the impact of international remittances on the labor supply of working-age men and women in Mexico. It accounts for the endogenity of remittance income and examines differences in the hours worked in urban and rural areas, owing to their remittance income. Remittances may reduce or increase work hours depending on the gender of the recipient, the location of the household, and the type of work. One plausible explanation for these differential impacts is that, when measuring the labor supply impact of remittances, the income effect from these monetary inflows is confounded with the disruptive effect caused by the preceding out-migration of family members. Overall, no support was found for the anecdotal observations of reduced labor effort due to greater remittance incomes among Mexican men reported in the popular press. Remittances seem only to be associated with a variation in the allocation of male labor supply across various types of employment. In contrast, remittances are accompanied by an overall drop in female labor supply resulting from reductions in informal sector and nonpaid work in rural areas.
ISSN:0002-8282
1944-7981
DOI:10.1257/000282806777211946